On Friday January 28, I boarded a Turkish Airlines flight bound for Tel Aviv, with a connection through Istanbul, to attend an internal Google security summit. This was by far the nicest flight I’ve ever been on. Whenever I travel for work, Google leverages an algorithm to decide how much I can spend on flights and hotels. This time the algorithm spat out a number that let me reserve a first-class ticket. I’ve flown first-class internationally on Delta before, but Turkish Airlines was pretty darn shi-shi.

We landed in Istanbul on Saturday. I took my sweet time getting off the plane, only to notice that my connecting flight, on the total opposite side of the massive terminal, was in final stages of boarding. A mad dash ensued, I made it in the nick of time, and I was grateful for having packed my essentials in my backpack as I could apply some deodorant to avoid annoying the fellow sitting next to me.

After landing in Tel Aviv there was a second reason why I was grateful to have my essentials: my checked luggage had not made it across the terminal in Istanbul. Echoes of Sweden from last year. Filled out a form and proceeded through customs, hoping they’d get my baggage to me in a reasonable amount of time.

I had landed on Saturday night, which is a very strictly-observed Sabbath day in Israel. Many shops closed, along with all public transit. So instead of catching a train in, I hailed a taxi, to my office instead of my hotel as the two were only separated by a ten-minute walk and I needed to grab a charge adapter.

That evening, unbeknownst to me, a gunman opened fire at a restaurant near Jericho (an hour and 45 minutes’ drive from Tel Aviv), and then fled the scene. There were no casualties.

The next day I walked around Tel Aviv with a couple of co-workers. We ended up at the beach, then took a train to the neighboring city of Haifa, where we had some great food and saw some great views.

I had intended to make it to the BYU Jerusalem Center that evening for their weekly concert, but by the time I would have needed to peel off from the group and hop on a bus to Jerusalem I was feeling the effects of jet lag. Something to do next time I’m in the area.

During the day I had received word that my luggage had been found, flown to Tel Aviv, and delivered to the hotel. Hallelujah. Upon return I collected my suitcase and gave it the new nickname “Boomerang”.

By this time, the Israeli Defense Force had launched a manhunt for the Jericho shooter and effectively laid siege to the city, setting up roadblocks and military checkpoints at the city’s entrances, checking IDs and conducting vehicle sweeps.

The next three days were jam packed with presentations and discussion. Most days I found myself awake at silly hours due to jet lag. Adjusted slowly.

The day after the conference, a group chartered a guided tour of Jerusalem. I wasn’t super excited about the prospect of following a tour guide everywhere and not being able to just wander, but figured I’d come along with everyone else.

After we arrived I had one of my coworkers share his location on Google Maps, so I could opportunistically peel off from the group and explore. First occasion was the Tower of David. It was absolutely lovely wandering around in the light drizzle with no one around, giving the perception that I had the run of the place.

I caught up with the group in a neighboring Christian church. Someone had cheekily turned the Bible to page 666. The local tour guide chuckled and rectified the situation when we pointed it out.

From there we went to a bazaar, where I peeled off a second time, found myself walking around on the rooftop above the bazaar, then located an art gallery where I chilled until figuring I should catch up to the group. Meandered through side residential streets till I found them, about to head to the Wailing Wall. At this point the guide admonished me for wandering off without telling him. Oops.

It appeared that there were folks who spent a great deal of time praying at the Wailing Wall. Made me wonder what daily life is like for ultra-orthodox Jews. Apparently the city grants a living stipend to allow them to spend their time in religious pursuits.

We went from there to the Temple Mount, an expansive plateau upon which stands the Dome of the Rock. I would have liked to peel off a third time but as we had to pass through metal detectors to get to this point, I sensed that this might not be the best place to ditch the group.

We next passed through a bazaar in the Muslim Quarter, and explored the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which according to tradition contains both the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

After that was lunch and a ride back to Tel Aviv.

The next day, Friday, I had arranged for a smaller group of three of us to return to Jerusalem on a more self-guided tour. It started with a tour of the BYU Jerusalem Center. This included an organ recital, and I got to request that they play If You Could Hie to Kolob. A very nice moment.

We left the center and walked into town. I peeled off from the others and visited Gethsemane. I was a bit disappointed in the site; it was not quite as secluded as I would have imagined. A small plot of land encircled by a tourist walkway, situated right next to a busy road with all manner of tour buses vying for space and making their annoyance with each other crystal clear. On more than one occasion someone got really annoyed and blared their horn for 15-20 seconds straight.

And of course I had to check out a graveyard. For Mom’s sake.

Grabbed a pita wrap from a small restaurant – my first time trying falafel, and it was delicious after a long morning – then met up with the others for a getaway. I could sense a quietness settle on the area as I returned to the group. Sabbath in Israel begins at 2pm, so we had to get out of there before then if we were gonna catch a train home. Tel Aviv is quite a bit more secular than Jerusalem, where everything really shuts down for the Sabbath. So even if transit weren’t an issue there wouldn’t have been any point in being in Jerusalem any longer.

One of our number was done for the day, while the other elected to head out on foot for more exploring in Tel Aviv. I stayed behind to work on some slides for work and rest my feet, then headed out to join him. We ended up renting an electric bike & scooter and headed out to a beach at sunset. It was a fun time; he’s quite a bit older than I but we share the same aesthetic sense for good camera shots.

The next day my goal was to visit the Dead Sea. It’s only a 45-minute drive from Jerusalem, and I had been trying to figure out a way to get myself there for a swim at some point on this trip. Public transit wasn’t running on Saturday, and all the car rental agencies in Tel Aviv were closed. However, the Tel Aviv airport car rental center was open all week long. So I hatched a plan to taxi to the airport and rent a car for the day. My plan was to go to Sacrament Meeting at the BYU Jerusalem Center, and from there on to the Dead Sea. I mentioned this plan in passing after dinner with the group I’d gone to Jerusalem with earlier, and being the nice guy that I am I felt obligated to invite them to come with. I was turned down, and that ended up being key in making this an excellent field trip.

While I was preparing to depart on my road trip on Saturday morning, the Israeli Defense Force was busy escalating their siege of Jericho and invading a local refugee camp, with a bulldozer and several armored vehicles.

Israeli forces centralized at the center of the camp near the ‘Martyrs Square’ roundabout, and continued to besiege a home in the Muqayta neighborhood of the camp where a Palestinian guerilla fighter found refuge. According to reports, the fighter refused to turn themselves in to the army, confronting the soldiers with live fire.

Israeli forces used bulldozers to partially demolish the house where the Palestinian fighter was barricaded inside, as a swarm of soldiers imposed a siege. Local youth from the camp used trash bins and other objects to protect themselves from Israeli fire.

There were a dozen injuries, all told.

I elected to leave plenty of slack in the egress from Tel Aviv, as you never know what kind of delays will be had at an airport car rental desk, and I could always just chill at the Jerusalem Center if I arrived with a couple hours to spare.

When I arrived at the desk, I was asked for my ID and passport. Oops. I had left my passport at the hotel room. Luckily I had a picture of it on my phone. “Thanks, that helped us run your information, but we cannot release the car to you without original documentation.”

Whelp. Nothing for it but a round-trip back to Tel Aviv, via taxi. Not cheap.

I returned to the desk at the airport and completed checkout. I could tell that the attendants were grateful that I was so patient with them, they were used to verbal abuse from customers that ran afoul of policy. Got set up with a nice brand-new car for the day.

The drive to Jerusalem was lovely; finally a classic solo-excursion. I arrived at the Jerusalem Center around 11am and wandered a bit around the grounds.

As it happened I mis-remembered the start of Sacrament Meeting – I thought it started at 12:30pm, but it was actually 10:30am. So I missed the actual sacrament portion, but got to hear the students’ testimonies. Actually ended up bearing my own, explaining that it was evident from my beard that I wasn’t a student, here on business after graduating six years ago. Good stuff.

I was glad that I’d mistaken the Sacrament Meeting start time. There was nothing I could have done to arrive any earlier, and if I knew I was missing part of the meeting, the drive from Tel Aviv would have been much more stressful.

After Sacrament Meeting concluded and folks were milling about, I got a tug on my arm. “JEFF!!” It was a returned sister missionary who had served in the Sammamish Valley ward two years ago, while I was ward mission leader. Amazing providence.

We reconnected and attended Sunday School. I told her about my plans for the day, and asked her about some fun field trips she’s been on. “Oh hey, you should go check out Jericho, it’s the oldest city in the world and has the Mount of Temptation.” That sounded just dandy to me. The Battle of Jericho was one of my favorite songs as a missionary, after all. I checked my map and saw that it would be a fairly quick detour, so decided to go stop in for a look-around between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. There was a neat mountain-side monastery that would be cool to explore.

After changing clothes I drove off for Jericho. The weather was lovely. Spotted a cool sculpture thing off the freeway and pulled over to check it out just because I could. Got to say hi to a camel.

As I approached Jericho I passed a military checkpoint. No one was stopping cars entering the city, but there looked to be a long line of cars exiting. I was dismayed at the amount of time I would have to spend waiting in that line to get out – but I was already in town, so nothing for it.

The city seemed almost abandoned, very little foot traffic about. It was also quite dirty, with litter scattered everywhere. Traffic laws were treated more like suggestions – drive too slow for the fellow behind you and they’ll just veer around you dangerously.

This was not the vibe I usually go for when I want to just wander around. I found a cable car that would take me up to the Mount of Temptation, boarded it and ascended. From the air I could see that the standard of living here was quite poor.

There was a small cafe at the top where I had lunch. While I was eating I did some Googling and found out that I had accidentally wandered into an area of the West Bank under the exclusive control of the Palestinian Authority. I also found that driving Israeli rental cars into such areas is forbidden. “Don’t worry about accidentally ending up in one of these areas – you’ll be stopped at a checkpoint before you can enter.” Guess the Jericho checkpoint was operating at half-strength. Gee thanks.

I had had enough of Jericho and was ready to leave. On my way to the cable cars to descend, a cafe employee confronted me for not paying.

“I already paid, before I ate.”

“Before?”

“Before, yeah.”

“Who you pay?”

[pointing to a person who seemed like the owner] “Him.”

[owner] “You pay me?”

“Yes, before.”

“No. You never. You never pay me.”

“Yes I did, before.”

“Never.“

Little did he know that he’d just activated my trap card.

I play, Receipt of Conceit!

After showing him my receipt the owner shrugged and the employee apologetically waved me off.

I got back to my car at the cable car parking lot and was gratified that it was still there in one piece. Drove through town and hit the line of cars waiting at the checkpoint to leave.

I had not appreciated just how slow this process would be. It took an hour and a half to traverse maybe half a mile. What made it worse was some of the locals’ disdain for queues; they pulled out to drive down the wrong side of the road and cut in line, inserting themselves closer to the checkpoint, earning hails of honking horns whenever such maneuvers were attempted. The Duncan Principle was very much in effect.

While in line I observed multiple cars just casually tossing out litter into the street. Made me sad.

At one point I got out of my car and wandered towards the front, just to check out what was going on up there. A soldier behind a barricade shouted “STOP!” and gestured with her hands to back away. Oookay.

While all this was going down I got to see a beautiful sunset, which I had intended to enjoy from a relaxing beach at the Dead Sea. Irksome.

Dusk was setting in when I finally made it to the front and handed over my passport. They didn’t even bother to question me or search my car, just waved me right on through. Would’ve liked to at least get a pat-down after all that.

I tore through the road to the Dead Sea, anxious to find a beach before the light faded completely. “GIVE ME SERENITEEEEE!” As it was so late, there were no cars heading in my same direction, but plenty heading the opposite way, happy beachgoers returning after their fun in the sun.

I was navigating towards a well-reviewed beach, but was keeping my eye out for places where I could just pull off to the side of the road and head to the shore. There was plenty of fencing, however, keeping folks from doing just that.

I rounded a corner and noticed a minivan parked in a pull-off area. Huh. I backtracked and parked alongside them. A long flat plain separated the road from the coastline. There were no fences in this area, but there was a small keep-out sign saying that the area was a nature preserve. I noticed plenty of signs of human activity in the area – bottles, footprints – and a couple of people in the distance walking back towards the minivan. Stuff it, if they really wanted people out they would’ve used a proper fence. Let’s go.

While a good deal shorter, the trek over reminded me a bit of when I visited a volcanic region in Hawaii a few years back, just trudging across a vast expanse. As I crested a hill half-way there I had to stop and just take in the view. A bright moon reflected off the water, which was an otherworldly light blue. The hills beyond still had a twinge of pink from the setting sun, which had long since passed behind the mountains behind me. The security checkpoint wait was certainly worth this.

After hiking in for 15 minutes I arrived at the shore, equipped with a towel and swimming suit. The water and air temperature were quite nice. There were no changing rooms, but there was also no one around for miles, so I just changed on the shore and waded out. The water level was fairly shallow until I hit a drop-off, and would have had to have started treading water. But instead of naturally sinking, I… didn’t? Just bobbed up and down in the water, floating freely. It was trippy, almost out of something sci-fi.

By this point clouds had come in to obscure the moonlight, so it was fairly dark. I spent 15 minutes just playing around with floating in various orientations, or relaxing on my back and enjoying the scenery. Finally headed in to towel off and get back to the car.

I was in the midst of doing so when a thought struck me, and I said to myself, “Self, it’s dark. There’s no one around for miles. Why the rush to get dressed?” So that’s how I found myself skinny-dipping in the Dead Sea. And let me tell you, that took the experience to a new level. So freeing.

Afterwards, standing on the shore and letting myself air-dry, I achieved a newfound appreciation for the allure of nudist colonies. Felt very connected to the surrounding nature. I highly recommend the experience, be it in Israel or elsewhere.

Notwithstanding the ever-looming darkness, it took me about 15 more minutes of just enjoying the atmosphere on the shore before I could tear myself away to start the trek back to the car. Ugh, clothes.

The plains weren’t totally flat, and it was a bit of an adventure making my way across some crevasses. Upon making it back, I noticed some moonlight peeking through the clouds and shining on the water.

All in all I ended up being exceedingly grateful for the long delay in getting out of Jericho. Were it not for that I would’ve probably found myself on some beach teeming with tourists. I was also very grateful that my co-worker had turned down my obligatory offer to join me on my road trip.

It was an hour and a half drive back to the airport. By this time the trains had started running again, so thankfully I didn’t need to pay for a fourth taxi trip that day. Made it back to the hotel, safe and sound.

The next day was my flight home. I’d be connecting through Istanbul again – this time with a healthier connection time, shouldn’t have any need to sprint across the terminal. Unfortunately, there was severe weather in Istanbul, and the airport there was limiting how many planes could arrive in their airspace. Our flight out ended up being delayed by over an hour.

I spent the time in the air stressing about what to do if I missed my flight to Seattle – there was only one such flight every day. We landed, I rushed out of the plane, and once again found myself in a mad dash, which included booking it up a long flight of stairs because the escalator next to it was too crowded. Thankfully made it to the outbound gate and got on board the final bus out to the airplane. I spent the ride out hunched over catching my breath.

The weather was so severe, winds so strong, that they escorted us from the bus up to the plane in groups of five. I was still sweaty from the run so I walked out without wearing my jacket, likely to the puzzlement of the other passengers. The air was cold, the winds buffeting. It was great.

Managed to sleep a bit on the flight back. I was not surprised when I landed and learned that my luggage had not made the transit across Istanbul. Filled out a form, caught a Lyft home, went back to work the next day. Got reunited with my suitcase a couple days later.

It was only later that I pieced together from news articles what had transpired in Jericho mere hours before I’d passed through as an oblivious tourist. Wow. What’s more, two days later the Israeli military conducted a second raid in the area, killing five Palestinians.

Very sobering, and very grateful that I made it through in one piece.

I later related the day’s events to one of my colleagues who lives in Israel. According to him I was luckier than I knew, as the Israeli plates on my car potentially painted a bit of a target on my back in Jericho. He himself had never ventured into any Palestinian-controlled areas. Upon seeing my pictures of the Dead Sea, he expressed surprise and joy that I’d found that spot; it was one of his favorites. He highly recommended I check out a BYU Jerusalem Center concert next time I’m in town, which he’ll try and make sure happens at some point down the road.

All in all…